The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border eBook

Nerving himself to the ordeal, and pulling down his
hat to obscure his features, Jack crossed the lawn
and started mounting the wide flight of stone steps
flanked by crouching stone lions. He reached the
marble tiles of the walk above and then, despite his
anxiety to gain the left wing and the tower where
his father was confined, he involuntarily paused.

The scene before him was one of the strangest to be
found on the North American continent—­this
marble courtyard, with its overhanging balcony around
the sides and rear and its splashing fountain and pool
in the center, the whole illuminated by the soft glow
of electric lights cunningly concealed along the edges
of the balcony like footlights on the lip of a stage.

But it was not this alone which held Jack’s
gaze riveted and caused a smothered cry of surprise
to burst from his lips. Involuntarily he stepped
from the shelter of a pillar behind which he had been
standing.

For approaching along the balcony of the left wing,
Jack saw the loved figure of his father engrossed
in conversation with a small, dark man of patrician
bearing.

It was instinct rather than conscious thought which
checked the cry on his lips. Instinct told him
a shout would mean betrayal, and the shattering of
his desperate plan.

Yet careless of who might see, he stood there looking
up at the distant figure until it was lost to view,
cut off by the outjutting roof above him. That
one sight, however, lifted a vast load from the boy’s
mind. His father, at least, was not mistreated.
Evidently the man with him was the Don. And as
evidently his father was treated more as guest than
prisoner.

At sound of a footstep on the marble tiles behind
him, Jack returned with a start to a realization of
his surroundings and the perils of his position.
Assuming a carelessness which he was far from feeling,
he refrained from turning about but instead started
walking for that left wing ahead in the tower of which
he knew his father to be lodged.

But the step behind him was accelerated, and he was
hailed by name as Morales. Jack halted.
Here was the first ordeal to be passed. Well,
he was prepared for it. According to his plan,
he had bound his face in a handkerchief and intended
to pretend having the toothache. The swathings
partly hid his features, and the pulled-down hat further
obscured them.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE NIGHT ATTACK

When Jack’s figure had become merged in the
shadows of the grove, big Bob, standing beside the
airplane, reached a decision.

“Not a soul in sight here,” he muttered
to himself, once more letting his gaze rove over his
surroundings. “Jack thought it would be
best for me to stay here, but nobody’s going
to monkey with the plane. I’m going to
follow him—­till he reaches the house, anyhow.
He may need my help.”